MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency
Weary Falkland Islands Response to Argentina's Ambassador to UN.
In a recent interview for the English language newspaper, The Buenos Aires Herald, Cesar Mayoral, Argentina's Ambassador at the United Nations, was reported to have made a number of statements about the Falkland Islands (Malvinas) and its inhabitants, which they might have been expected to find controversial.
According to the Ambassador, the Islanders are "Argentines just like us", even though they won't admit it and owe what he described as their "comfortable position" to the erroneous belief by previous Argentine administrations that flattery and seduction would result in the recovery of "a territory that belongs to Argentina". If Britain did not "subsidize and aid" the Islands, "it would be impossible for the Islanders to maintain their attitude".
If the Ambassador was expecting a fiery response to his remarks from either the British or Falkland Islands Government (which, he does not recognize) he was mistaken. In the absence of the Governor of the Falklands, his office in Stanley, the Islands' capital has so far not issued any statement and the Islands' councillors, likewise, have not felt that the Ambassador's remarks merited an official response. Not, it should be said, because anyone could be found to agree with Mayoral's views, but rather, as one councillor said, because it was hard to think of a response suitable to print.
Asked by MercoPress whether she felt particularly Argentine this morning, Falkland Islands Councillor Norma Edwards replied, "No I don't, never have and never will." To the suggestion made by Mayoral "that Islanders are more connected to Argentina than they would like to admit" Mrs. Edwards made the point that the Islands had been claimed by Britain and had remained British since before Argentina came into existence as a distinct country. She said that Argentina had to learn to recognize this and the fact that the British Government's commitment to honouring the wishes of the Falkland Islanders was firm and would remain so.
"The reality is that we are people who have lived here for 170 years with all the rights that go with that". Another elected member of the Islands' eight-person Legislative Council, Mrs. Jan Cheek, expressed this firm view on the British status of the Falkland Islands and their inhabitants.
Cllr.Cheek said that the Falkland Islanders did not enjoy "a comfortable position" with regard to the attitude of the present Argentine Government, who continued to create difficulties in some "petty and extraordinary ways". An example was that the participation of a Falkland Islands team in a South American cricket competition had had to be abandoned, due to pressure on other competitors coming from the Argentine Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Buenos Aires. A further and tragic example of the interference of the same ministry was, she suggested, the abandonment of the intended visit by a group of next of kin to the renovated Argentine military cemetery at Darwin.
Pressed for a reaction to the ambassador's statement by MercoPress, Falkland Islands Councillor Mike Summers said, " Mayoral's comments are riddled with untruths and inconsistencies in an attempt to deny the concept of self-determination. He denies that Falkland Islanders have that right, but they are fighting a losing battle. It is increasingly the case throughout the world that self-determination and democratic choice will prevail. And so eventually it will here."
Mr. Summers accused the current Argentine regime of wanting to restore the pre-1982 situation "as though there was no war or that they did not cause a useless and bloody conflict." He added, " Of course they have the added embarrassment that both the President and the Foreign Minister volunteered to fight for Galtieri, even though he was a ruthless and democratically illegitimate tyrant. The re-emergence of this ultra nationalist strain and the retreat from real consultative democracy in Argentina must be a worry for the whole continent; it is to be hoped that it the last throes of a discredited generation."
President of the Falkland Islands Chamber of Commerce, Tim Miller said that Mayoral was wrong in his assertion that the Falklands depended financially on the British Government. Apart from the cost of defence, which was only necessary because of the perceived threat from Argentina, the Falklands had received no aid or subsidy whatsoever from the UK since 1986. For a hundred years before that, the Falkland Islands Government had balanced its operating budget, only receiving aid for development.
Mr. Miller issued an invitation to the Ambassador to visit the Islands to learn for himself something of the realities of life there. Through real experience and understanding of the differences involved, including those issues on which agreement might never be reached, he argued that it might be possible to concentrate on those areas, where agreement would be of mutual benefit. Through a process of real understanding, he suggested, there might ultimately emerge "the possibility to build up a more normal, friendly, peaceful relationship".
John Fowler ? Stanley.
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